A: My sister Jennifer gave me the idea, though she claims not to remember it!

It was August, 1999. I was visiting my family in California, talking about a screenplay I was thinking of writing about a Jewish slave-girl in Pompeii. My sister said, ‘Why don’t you write a book for kids, set in Pompeii?’ As soon as she said that, it was as if a giant light bulb went on over my head: GOOD IDEA! I had always loved Nancy Drew mystery stories when I was a little girl and I thought ‘Wouldn’t it be great to have a girl detective like Nancy, but she lives in ancient Roman times!’ I knew my girl detective couldn’t be 18 years old like Nancy, because girls could legally get married in Rome from 12 on. That’s why I made Flavia ten years old in the first book. Also, because I wanted my books to appeal to boys as well as girls, I thought of giving Flavia three friends, two of whom were boys… After that, the ideas just started pouring into my head.

A: No! Art was my favourite subject. I always thought history was dull. But when I was 18 I read a book that changed my life. It was called The Last of the Wine by an English author called Mary Renault, and it was about Classical Greece. It sparked my life-long interest in the Classics (the study of all things Greek and Roman.)

A: I first thought of writing The Flavian Trilogy in 2008. But the first book didn’t really work so the Flavian Trilogy become a four book series called The Roman Quests. The first one is Escape from Rome, in which three rich Roman children whose house has been confiscated by the evil Emperor Domitian must make their way to Britannia on the furthest edges of the Roman Empire. There they meet a mysterious Jewish boy, on a quest of his own, and a British girl who will be their guide in a strange land. The Roman Quests series also features appearances by Flavia, Jonathan, Nubia and Lupus, now in their mid-twenties. The final book, Return to Rome, is the final word on what happened to all my Roman Mysteries characters.

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